Illuminatus Trilogy

When the students of the Maybe Logic Academy got to study with Robert Anton Wilson during the last years of his life on this planet, we covered a wide range of subjects (as did Bob's own writing) and probably spent more time on other writers, like James Joyce and Ezra Pound and Aleister Crowley, than on Bob's own works.

One exception was our twelve week course focused entirely on the Illuminatus! trilogy.

As part of that, we analysed the book in some depth, had a few puzzles resolved (and several more raised by the close reading).

Whereas Robert Shea went onto to other kinds of writing (historical novels, etc) RAW took this material and ran with it. He seemed pleased to finally have a group of people looking at it the way Joycean scholars look at Ulysses, or Pynchon fans at Gravity's Rainbow.

It does warrant re-reading, and it doesn't seem to age as much as one would assume about a book written in the 1970s. No-one could surely have seen a hole getting blown into the Pentagon (until 9/11).

Originally we set up a Wiki, because we wanted to invite collaboration, but it never really reached critical mass. We did make contact with people who had made comic versions, got informal OKs from the Shea / Wilson clans, and heard from other students, like Toff Fillipo who compiled a complete character breakdown.

A separate Wikia for Illuminatus! also exists, with some cross-over material, although it seems to have gone quiet, just as ours did. Some links to their pages appear here.

"This book is a mirror. When a monkey looks in, no philosopher looks out."